Great Skate #22 - Sherbourne Commons

On Saturday, January 18 I went skating on a rink on the edge of Lake Ontario: Sherbourne Commons.

The rink is located at the foot of Sherbourne, next to the new George Brown College and Corus Entertainment buildings. The Redpath Sugar Factory is nearby. Also Sugar Beach - which is a lot more appealing in July.

It's all part of the Waterfront Toronto redevelopment project, revitalizing industrial lands into something more enjoyable.

It's a great idea, although the area still feels more remote than it actually is. Looking out on a harbour like this makes me think of Thunder Bay (never been there, maybe it's not like this at all), not Toronto:
Now I have the Edmund Fitzgerald song in my head again.
When I got to the rink in the middle of the morning, there were just two other skaters. The ice was in perfect condition. I did clockwise laps until more skaters showed up. There were probably close to 20 of us by the time I left.

It's a lovely rink - no gerbil cage! And the ice was in great condition.

One of the other skaters asked me if they had "cut the ice" that morning. I had to ask him what he meant. 

Apparently "cut the ice" means the same thing as "the Zamboni guy comes out and drives around the ice really slowly to make it clean and smooth again, while you get cold and impatient waiting for him to finish." I have never heard the term before. So there you go - a new rink and a new addition to my skating vocabulary.

It looks a lot more like Toronto when you're looking north-west.

Location: Sherbourne Common, 61 Dockside Dr, Toronto, ON M5A 1B6, Canada

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